Monday, February 3, 2014

Welcome to Miss Celie's Book Club.

Alright.

So because I want to do my part in contributing to the collective intelligence of folks near and dear to me, I figure it is high time to start a book discussion group. I read and discuss books a lot, so why not make a thing of it?

So because fish don't fry in the kitchen, welcome to Miss Celie's Book Club.

This is for everyone. This month, I've chosen Long Division, a novel by Kiese Laymon as the group's first selection.

I was first introduced to Kiese via an essay of his that was featured on Gawker called "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: A Remembrance" and I was floored. His writing spoke to me both plainly and vividly, directly and knowingly. The motherfucker can write. I sped through his essay collection, How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others In America over Christmas break, and couldn't wait to swan dive into this book, so here we are.

Going forward, I'll talk suggestions and we'll vote for future selections. This will be an interactive situation. As such, in the future, we'll participate in discussions via social media and other platforms using hashtags like #MCCB, etc. It'll be a grand time.

What you need to do:

Purchase the book.
Grab it from Amazon via Paperback [HERE] or Kindle [HERE]

Read the book.
Book selections will be broken up into digestible chunks. This means you need to actually READ the damn book. To clarify, you can absolutely just plow through it, but for the sake of discussion, it will be split up as follows:

Section 1: up until page 49 (the end of the section titled "CLICK THAT."Finished by February 15
Section 2: pages 51-120 (the end of the section titled "THAT WORK SHED." Finished by Feb. 22
Section 3: pages 123-194 (the end of the section titled "EYES HAVE IT." Finished by March 1
Section 4: page 195 to end Finished by March 8
After each section is completed, we will convene here and via social media to discuss, question, consider, argue, agree, disagree, and learn. Drop me a quick line via email (mentioning BOOK CLUB or HERE ARE MY NUDES in the subject to grab my attention) or Facebook and I'll keep you abreast (or apenis) of all of the happenings. I foresee a video chat and music video featuring R. Kelly, King of Morals Literacy, in our future.